Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 100 years ago

William Jefferson, a black soldier from Fort George Wright accused of murder in a street brawl, took the stand to give his version of the story.

Jefferson said he and a fellow soldier were walking down Front Avenue (now Spokane Falls Boulevard) one night when they met some men who asked the soldiers for a dime.

When the soldiers wouldn’t give them a dime, the men called the soldiers names and started to hurl rocks at them. Jefferson said he ran behind a wood pile on the corner and he heard one man say, “Come on Perry, ye’ll get the black ——.”

One of them came toward him with an upraised brick in his hand. So Jefferson said he picked up a 4-foot wooden club and swung it at the man’s head.

“I was afraid he would kill me and I hit him,” testified Jefferson.

The state’s witnesses, on the other hand, testified that Jefferson rushed out and struck the victim, who had not been part of the rock-throwing incident and knew nothing about it.

Two days later, the jury convicted Jefferson of manslaughter – the lightest verdict short of acquittal – and recommended a lenient sentence.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1968: The nation’s first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated, in Haleyville, Ala.